


As yesterday

by bezzzno



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Angst and Feels, Canon Era, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26202745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bezzzno/pseuds/bezzzno
Summary: George is bathed in nightmares every night, he is never hurt or afraid — he always knows for sure that everything will end, everything will end. The worst part is when Lipton disappears.
Relationships: Carwood Lipton/George Luz
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	As yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> Theres are images from the show. I promise.
> 
> Interruptions over time and a non-chronological narrative are here.
> 
> Translated from Russian.
> 
> My sister told me, after reading this in the original language, that this is such a difficult shit to describe that I was afraid to translate and post for a long time. But here we are. 
> 
> If you find any errors, I just apologize :)
> 
> Happy reading.

When Lip holds his hand, sliding icy fingers under his sleeve and sending shivering charges, Luz lets him.

When Luz grabs his hands and shoves them down the back of his neck and under the scarf, closer to his body and his half — dead but pounding heart, Lip lets him.

Because it's the little thing that keeps you in the moldy and freezing reality, because right now it's necessary.

_***_

_When he kisses him, all the explosions are muted._

_Slow down to a minute flash of light._

_And then they finally disappear, allowing George to feel the most divine and weightless calm, too impossible, and therefore priceless in the war. Lipton is warm: fingers melt on the skin, dissolving in it, as in resinous molasses. George holds him so tightly that his frozen fingers ache, making it hard to breathe, and he gives a death-numbing cough._

When the tenderness of her fingers passes like a prickly — so real — coolness down the back of her neck, George shivers. His eyes snap open, and he takes a deep breath into his lungs. The coma of the phantom past lets go, as does the languor of something impossible that has disappeared. He rubs his eyes — fingers along his stubbly chin.

"Just like in the old days..."

Luz pulls a smile, looking at the floor, the grimace slides into a grin, as a result: a whine and the most acrid, throat-cutting scream. He grabs his sore throat, breathes again, now feels like itchy, frosty cracks somewhere near the Adam's Apple.

George is bathed in nightmares every night, he is never hurt or afraid — he always knows for sure that everything will end, everything will end. The worst part is when Lipton disappears. 

George misses him: he looks at the exploding fireworks and festivities, the sprawling cities, the reborn world-and he is madly sick when he misses it. Not from the war, for sure, but perhaps from the feeling of being almost alive and almost dead-at any second.

By the feel of the armoured fingers around his neck, holding him close, holding him tighter, as if the same fragile and-perhaps damned lucky — body from behind would save him from an art attack, and a prayer that went crazy on repetition somewhere in the subconscious.

Back then, these hands were a real blessing. Under the crack of his heart, the earth, and the frosty crust in his eyes, George now felt saved, even for a cursed moment — a single breath in the silence.

_— Lip..._

He held on so tightly and tightly, hearing through the frantic volleys the breathing nearby, which was measured and calm, broken only by a frosty wind. Perhaps Carwood was the most deranged or the most real soldier, being capable of control and consciousness at such a moment. Perhaps George was the same from the outside.

***

Into the sanctuary of ashes, air Christ, and flesh, George enters peacefully and with a heavy exhalation. The remnants of past lives drum on my fingers: unspoken prayers, unbroken crosses. Before our eyes, the shift of the endless, confusing film, that the frames are torn and the image is erased, that only emaciated sounds and frayed laughter, in which you can no longer believe yourself, are gnawing.

In his chest began to rustle, the wind cutting off his emotions from the inside. Luz recognized the look. An intertwining, careful tenderness, danger, and affectionate warmth, and together with the closeness of the building, with its clinging echo of the ringing breath, the feeling of home and something unselfishly Holy melted away. Something impossible — unattainable. Luz freezes, capturing the moment of the profile of his close friend burned by the contour of light. Through the splinters of the walls and the crack in the earth lining, Luz felt a deep emptiness receding. A very fast, rattling end, or — perhaps-on the contrary, painfully endless. And most importantly — tangible.

***

All the memories associated with Lipton were filled with something viscous, monstrously scary — and very warm. Carwood warmed with his presence, his gaze, his shadow. It is as if the sky is merging, the storm is moving away. And you're in the right place. To feel something for him seemed inescapable, something right — and perhaps insanely necessary. Under Carwood's word, under his gaze, his caress, and his firm step, you were unconsciously covered with a bilious, unacceptable trepidation that everything would work out, that you would definitely be alive, just because Lip said so, or better yet, no.

***

Lip manages to circumnavigate death three times, if you take into account only the shell casings and what Luz managed to capture. He could have died from a bullet that would have spun into his body less beautifully and successfully than the scar on his face and hip. He could have died if his legs had moved even an inch during the Market Garden survey. He could have died during the bombardment, when he never stopped for more than a couple of seconds near the trenches of his men (after all, together with Luz, sharing cigarettes and a doomed exhalation, when you don't care at all, when the next moment of life is controlled by a breath of air, artillery calculation, loose icy earth and the guest of good luck that the dead gave you. When there is absolutely no more control in your hands.) Lipton might die now, from a damned disease, a damned disease that he had brought on himself, perhaps just unconsciously wanting to die before them all.

***

Luz marks the Sergeant from the second Sobel slaps him for the stripes. He noted the confidence in his voice, the precision and complaisance — something that was missing in his own voice when it came to higher ranks. George was only good enough for jokes.

Lipton seems to be the most prepared. He enters the barracks lit, strong and unquestioning. He wants to obey Lip's requests, even if I have to go through the entire training session again. But Luz, after all, as he stretched his flaming legs and wiped his face with the bottom of his t-shirt, realized that any shit the Sergeant passed on to them was waiting for superhuman results from himself, as one of the main faces of Easy Company — Winters was undoubtedly the first. Sobel was not so much a face as an itch in the ass that still had to hold the face when it burned. This is the anatomical hierarchy.

During the feast, Luz swears to God that the eye falls inadvertently. Inadvertently, he is sitting a meter and a half away from the person opposite. From a lime Lip that pulled delicious red strings of spaghetti, whose lips managed to smile at a joke or a frivolous exchange. Luz accidentally highlights his light-edged profile and just happens to note with a grin how childishly the Sergeant stuffs his cheeks, being eerily pleased. George gnaws with excitement and some kind of delight, it is worth seeing a warm smile rustling and sincere wrinkles at the eyes from it. It freezes for a moment — why, it freezes all the time.

***

The ability to attract attention, being from a large family, rather becomes your burned-out skill, a bony habit that spills out when you even remotely touch strangers. As for the war, you create your own family around. You create this shell, unity, confidence in the future, once you can laugh at anyone. Luz became the older brother he had not had time to be in his own original family. Luz also remains an impenetrable slap to every shit that touches someone else's mood and morale. Until it strikes the blood on the palms, which is worse (?), not his.

As long as the saturation of the eyes does not go out, does not freeze and does not sink under the weight of a smoked cigarette. You hide yourself behind every puff, every heavy blow to the lungs, it's easier to close your eyes — even necessary.

The hateful fact hung on the acute loneliness of dependence-the thirst for a parent's gaze and the warmth of fingers in her hair. Luz had never been satisfied with it, never felt it sincerely, deeply, and for a long time — and there was no time.

When, after the seventh race at the Currahee, Luz purses his lips at the crunch of his foot, he tries to ignore it, with a full-leg discharge for every step.

At night of the same day, Luz breathes steadily, frozen in the most painless position. Amid the march of cautious exhalations, the interruptions of tired organisms, and the snoring of Penconte, Luz is too intertwined in his thoughts to notice someone else's touch in time to avoid flinching. He takes a sharp breath and shrinks into the bed instinctively, and is alarmingly quickly calmed by someone else's stroking of his forearm.

— I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be so abrupt.

Luz nods slowly, his lips parting.

— Lip? Daddy can't sleep? - He tilts his head in a sort of playfulness, but the thoughts that have escaped him a moment ago don't allow him to put on a smile more sincerely than he did.

Lipton looks hard, with oozing regret, and Luz has no idea where it came from. George swallows the rest of the words, which are now unpleasant, wormily Curling in his throat. He gives up and exhales.

— Sorry.

— You won't be able to study any more, will you?

Luz tilts her head back, looks out from under her lashes. He's hardly surprised.

— You may have a sprain, but it's worse if it's broken.

— The fracture makes them squeal like girls, Lip.

The man looks up from somewhere in the darkness of the floor, and Luz only now realizes that the man wasn't looking at him. Because Lipton's next look painfully palpable, a tiny glare on the pupil that illuminates, for some reason, the iris and all the deep, attractive warm color.

Lip gently pats his forearm and shows him some salve in his right hand.

"We don't have any furloughs or sick days here, you know," — Lip's tone is regretful, as if he's apologizing for Sobel personally and before the Tribunal, — "But maybe this will help a little. Be careful, okay? Good night."

Lip gets up from his bed, drops that protective smile, and walks away.

The next thing Luz eats into himself, amid the pile of sounds from his companions — is the creak of Lip's bed, his regular breathing, the touch of his fingers on the blanket, and-even-the pounding of his heart. The thumping that was now painlessly soothing in his throat, in his veins, and between his ribs. Such a neat and too affectionate warmth. Luz presses back into the bed, bending a little, trying to take a deep breath, to wash away this sinless flame somewhere inside.

_"Damn it…"_

He rubs the pleasantly cold jelly all over his foot, carefully handling the finger bones on top. The ointment is absorbed by the coolness, but instantly burning from the inside. George seems to think that it's definitely something familiar. But he doesn't want to realize that.

***

To walk to the mountain without haste, a lazy walk — to make it before dawn-to capture something unimaginable, something so vast that you do not notice, always looking down wearily. The sun over Currahee is hot, fresh and very clear, clouds are almost not expected, but even if they float out from under the sky, the picture is just filled with strokes, like oil.

Luz is not an artist, a poet, or a spectator of aerial beauty, but you make up weightlessly when you get such a rare chance.

They go to the mountain on the last day of the camp — or rather, on the last night. Departure in the morning, but everything will be in time. Everything becomes so precise, so detailed, when the sun is shining before your eyes.

There is a metaphor in this. Or a warning. Or all of them. Luz gives himself up to the warmth of a towering, softly scarlet flame with the future thought that maybe hell really isn't on earth. But not under the ground, but in the most insignificant place, until you lie down under a bullet, throw one last tearful look — and, if you're lucky, the heavens will tell you if you've lived for nothing.

Luz doesn't really want to hear their voices. Nor does he want to delve into the essence of sinful, holy, and accidental deaths. As long as there is something like this searing sight in the world, when you are alive, relatively young and full of hope, let the rest go far away-even if to the afterlife.

The guys are sitting on the top, smoke seasoning the horizon. Everyone thinks about their own, conversations are slowed down in one moment, when the rays reach the lashes. When the idea that the sky is smashed does not overtake and does not even Shine with the possibility in your head-that rare shit that you will see and feel for yourself, as not the most pleasant surprise, although who knows how.

Lip looks back at the camp first, as if he has seen enough of this magical sight, as if he is the only one who knows that they have yet to visit the clouds.

Because to believe the peaceful glare of calm is akin to blissful self-deception, thirst, dream. Lip doesn't look like a dreamer, but for some reason, Luz thinks He wants war more than anyone else. Lipton, like everyone else, was on the front line for the first time, but Lipton is a Sergeant.

He shows the best athletic results, along with Winters. Lipton can rightfully be considered the best. And war attracts such people. Perfect in everything, burning and thirsty, even if only with the heart or passion to race with bony. Somehow, Luz was sure that Lipton would have won against her.

And he was right.

***

Luck floated alongside the Sergeant, skirting his trenches, covering him with her hands and some kind of grace. Maybe that's why he seemed so steady and confident, so generous with his own touch as a blessing. Maybe that's why he wanted to stay close.

Luz calls to him after the first art attack, and he follows him with his eyes. The blessing of the Lipton has covered his trench so thickly that the sounds of the explosions are muffled, warning, but not dangerous.

Luz is afraid to believe them.

There's a crunchy, mottled cloud under your feet, because you can't feel your feet, and if this is a metaphor for you, it's the most smeared, disgusting reality for Joe and bill. He doesn't have time to catch his breath, looking at the pieces next to him, at the boots Doc Rowe gave him. Luz watches — unable to tear himself away from the remains of Lieutenant Buck's wobbly body, the sour note of memory that falls in an instant, along with every particle of snow that settles on his skin, slowly eating away, peeling off every layer of skin.

— Luz...

The view of Lipton is remotely sober. From under the helmet, it envelops you again with something real, something that reminds you that time is still passing. He hears the Sergeant, sees the same man, burned by the scar, embracing death every moment, which carries him ahead of everyone.

Luz wants to touch Lipton to make sure that **he** is still alive.

Lip was standing next to two of their mutual comrades with their legs torn off, Lip was holding a bleeding Hoobs in his hands, Lip was standing too close to death, washed in blood and dry tears that Luz had never seen — never wanted to see.

When they divide one shivering breath into fibers of air, when all they can do is pray and be lucky, Luz begins to see Lipton as a God.

He is almost convinced of this, looking at the smoking shell opposite, that he has been counting down too long. When the Sergeant — for the first time — lights a cigarette, Luz watches the crucifixion that touched his soul.

He feels his dying heart thrashing and drawn to the nearest light. Luz finds it. Very close.

***

Lip is not in the headquarters, nor in the dilapidated houses that some have equipped as barracks, Luz goes around almost the entire city, with a growing, squeezing wax inside.  
Lipton sits almost by the river, leaning against the sacks of the outbuildings, looking at the other side of the meltdown, the air rippling his hair and stroking his skin like a merciless ice floe. The Sergeant shivers, but continues to stare at the frozen horizon, covered with ash mixed with snow, earth, and blood.  
Luz takes a breath, looking at Lipton, who looks like a perfect sniper target, although from a distance he probably could have been mistaken for a Ghost — the thought didn't make it any better.

  
"You don't think your walk's been too long, Sergeant?" Luz gently runs the back of his hand over the other man's shoulder.

  
Lip shakes his head and looks up. He looks tired and haggard, even the moment that he left his usual worries — unofficial, since Speirs has already released him from everything until he recovers — and went out into the city, stayed there.

  
Luz did not like to see through people, to be burned by empathy so much that it became sick, although, it would seem, not even your life. But now he wondered what Lipa was doing to break away from reality, where It would take him. Luz sits down next to him-Lip's eyes close, as if he can barely hold on and just can't get up and move at least to the nearest building without a likely fall or a cutting attack. Luz puts his arm around him, and Lip puts his head on his shoulder, too out of control, like dough, and lets out a sigh of relief. George doesn't need words to feel the full aura of gratitude and closed-eye fatigue from Lipton. Uneven breathing is sometimes interrupted by wheezing-Luz presses closer. In a couple of minutes he would take him to headquarters, tuck him in, and lull him to sleep if necessary-read a story about something other than bombing, and stroke his hair as Lip himself had done in the trenches. Luz will pay him back.

***

When Luz sets foot on the shore of a quiet life. His boots cut through the asphalt of a virgin-victorious world, a succession of smiling, trembling cities, and he rarely looks ahead. Looking around at the civilians, the cleanliness of their clothes, the rustle of breaths and voices, Luz looks only into the distance. Through time, space narrows to the point of sight, which does not weigh down the hands of the rifle, and does not weigh down the radio hammering through the air and the screech of its waves.

George sails in the evening. Walking strangely along a familiar road, remembering every inch of air, places, and perhaps neighbors, George sees in passers-by only the soldier-like outlines of people who shouldn't be here, who never have been here, and never will be. When Luz instinctively sees his own house in the distance, he slows down and turns around. The surroundings are fleeting in the morning dawn, when he first boarded the ferry with the idea that he would bring his mother pride, protection, and all that she always needed. George omits the moment of thinking that it was necessary for him. His smiling mother's race to a metaphorical war, into the unknown, into the abyss. Looking at the path he has taken, George thinks that he would probably walk it again. Through the bullets that never touched him, through the fog of bombs and screams, through orders and trembling in his hands, and somewhere in his ribs. Buried in his memories, George can't look down. The thought that he never returned home floats through his veins like bitter molasses.


End file.
